Precious Over Ice Cream
by SlvrSoleAlchmst1
Summary: Kira and Cagalli's birthday fic! The two siblings walk in the park, and Cagalli brings up their complicated past. Kira asks if she has any regrets, and assures her that although he's now her brother, it doesn't change who they are.


_A/N: Yay, it's my Kira and Cagalli birthday fic! I listened to "Precious Rose" on repeat while I wrote this for inspiration. For me, Cagalli is darn hard to write, and this was a deeper piece, so I needed that boost. I hope everyone enjoys it!_

Kira gazed wistfully through the glass of the gleaming window, oblivious to the world as he witnessed the beautiful May scenery outside for the first time that day. It was the eighteenth, his birthday, and he'd been inside cleaning and preparing for the party for hours on end. It wasn't until recently that Lacus had demanded he take a break; with a smile she'd shooed him to the front door and ordered him to go for a walk and come back at sunset, while she finished the final preparations. Now he lingered at the doorway, peering through the sidelights, waiting and watching patiently as the wild racket unfolded in the kitchen behind him.

"I'm telling you, I won't go!" shouted an angry female voice that echoed like a gunshot down the hall. "_We_ threw the party, so _we'll_ finish the work. I can handle it!"

Another, softer voice twittered in response. "Nonsense. The question is not whether you can _handle_ the workload, it's whether you _deserve_ to be handling it, which frankly, you don't, because today is your birthday."

Kira couldn't help but shake his head at Lacus' logic. His full attention was finally pulled from the view outdoors, however, when a thunderous rumble echoed from behind him and an irate blonde girl came stomping across the hardwood to squeeze his arm. The front door was flung open, and he dragged unceremoniously through it.

The voice of the pink-haired songstress reached them before they disappeared. "Both of you, please try to have some fun! Goodbye."

"Arrgh!"

Kira blinked up at the girl who was hauling him across the lush grass by the arm, and at once he laughed. His sister hadn't changed a bit since the day they'd first met, even with all they'd been through together.

"Cagalli, you really should try to relax," he grinned, tugging himself free of her vicious hold.

"I swear, if one more person tells me I need to relax, I'm going to ask Erica Simmons to take the Strike Rouge back out." But Kira caught a hint of a twinkle in her eye, and he knew she'd already calmed down. Their rapid pace had slowed to a steady gait, and the young brunette looked left and right as they plodded to nowhere in particular, observing with tranquility the sunlit sidewalk and the new growth on the trees.

"What are you thinking about?"

He blinked. Cagalli was staring up at him with her bright amber eyes.

"Nothing really," he shrugged, tucking both hands neatly into his pockets as he walked beside her. "I guess I'm just thinking about how nice the weather is today, and how I never really noticed things like that before. Took them for granted, I suppose."

For a moment she was silent, and then she nodded in agreement. "Yeah, you're right. It's pretty." Then she nudged him playfully. "But I can't believe we finally get to spend time with each other and all you can talk about is the weather."

The Freedom pilot chuckled lightly and fixed her with a soft smile. "It hasn't been _that_ long since we last talked, Cagalli."

Her face fell just slightly, and she looked away. "Maybe," she began, "But for some reason no matter how much we talk these days, it always feels different from the way it did before. Like there's a weight there."

They had left the boundaries of the vast Athha estate and merged onto the main sidewalk. Kira observed his sister with a small frown, skillfully sidestepping to avoid an oncoming child on a tricycle. The little bell on the handlebars tinkled merrily, and somewhere down the road warbled the music of an ice cream truck. Sunlight caught on the trees, shining through the thin leaves until they glowed with an unearthly light. The day was perfect, but it didn't take any military training or excellent powers of observation for Kira to realize that his sister was feeling disturbed about something.

His reassuring smile was warm. "What's bothering you, Cagalli?" he asked her, noting the way she jumped upon hearing her name spoke after the long moments of silence.

"Oh, n-nothing," she replied, chewing on her lower lip with anxiety.

Kira knew better than to pry. Instead he waited, as the two of them kept in step and turned a corner to head for the park.

"Actually, it's about us," she finished after a time, averting her eyes as he looked at her again.

"Us?" he encouraged.

She kept her eyes on the ground in front of her. "Doesn't it ever make you wonder? What my father told me, the picture of us as babies with that woman… we never really solved anything. You didn't tell me what _you_ know, either. It's just, sometimes I wonder if it's really all true, that you really are my…b-brother." She stumbled over the word.

The brunette stopped walking, and his sister turned to him questioningly.

"Cagalli…" He thought he may have looked a bit reproachful, but he couldn't help it.

Said blonde fumed. "What? Don't look at me like that! I have a right to know everything too, don't I?"

They had reached the park. A steady flow of Naturals and Coordinators filtered through along the winding paths, walking dogs and eating ice cream in complete bliss. Kira took the opposite girl by the shoulder and led her to a nearby bench. Once they had seated themselves, he leaned back and let the sunlight play over his features before answering her.

Finally he sighed. "You have just as much right as I do to know," he began, "But I don't think it will make a difference in the end."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean it's not a truth that's easy to face. And no matter what I tell you about our past, nothing will change. I know now that you're my flesh and blood, and that's that."

At first she looked taken aback, then she made a little noise in the back of her throat, somewhere between a snort of disgust and a bitter grunt of acceptance. "I trust you, Kira, but sometimes I still think everything that happened to us was completely unfair."

It was Kira's turn to be surprised. "Unfair? How, Cagalli?"

"How?" she echoed, and her voice rose in volume. "Think about it! Why did we end up like this? Why did it happen to us?"

"Why did _what _happen?" he pleaded.

"The whole thing! Us being siblings. You being my brother." She tugged absently at a strand of her blonde hair. "Damn it, I don't even _feel_ like your sister, but suddenly I am and everything is hazy."

Ah, so that had been the issue. Kira couldn't think of anything to say. Of course, he'd found it shocking as well, when he'd first been told of the discovery, but he hadn't had much time to dwell on it. It wasn't surprising to find that his twin, contemplative as she sometimes was, had allowed herself to focus too extremely on the significance of the turn of events now that the war had mercifully ended.

"Please, Cagalli, don't let it get to you," he urged her, meeting her amber eyes with his own amethyst ones. "You don't have to worry. Even though we probably are twins, nothing between us has to be different at all, right? It doesn't change who we are as people." The look on her face made him wish he hadn't said it. For the first time, Kira Yamato wondered if he had been wrong about the way she felt about him.

But she didn't say anything to contradict his words. Instead she leaned forward to rest both elbows on her knees. The blonde stared out across the open grass, where a small group of children were busily launching a kite into the air. She left Kira to fidget restlessly, while the breeze toyed with her golden hair and raised goosebumps on her bare arms.

"It really _wasn't_ fair," she insisted again, after some time had elapsed. "I keep hoping that somewhere, something just went wrong and all of this is a twisted dream. It all happened too fast for either of us to do anything. Those days we spent in the desert — I thought they would last forever. Then we finally reached Orb, and the next thing I knew you were leaving. And by the time we met up again, it seemed like our separate destinies had already been decided."

Kira didn't say anything. He watched her profile as she stared straight ahead and kept speaking.

"You and Lacus just seemed to fall into place. And I happened to meet Athrun on the beach. The next time we met we were both already on different paths. We both have people we care about now, and I wouldn't change it, but I can't help wondering if things might have been different if this stupid universe wasn't so disorganized, or if we'd been given a chance." Her smile was bitter.

The brunette paused only for a quick beat. "Do you regret it, Cagalli?"

She started, blushing as the inquiry reached her full throttle. "I-I guess I don't really know," she stammered. "But it's too late now. We don't have _either_ sort of relationship. One of them for obvious reasons, and the other because I just can't convince myself that I'm actually related to you. A brother is someone you've lived with since childhood, someone who beats you up and shares your things without asking and gets you in trouble, but who also knows you better than anyone else and cares about you more than anything. To me, you're still just my friend. There's a lot I don't know about you."

"But I do care about you, Cagalli," Kira stressed, careful not to sound too syrupy lest he ignite the girl's annoyance. "I still want to protect you, and that doesn't change whether I'm your brother or not." He stood up quite suddenly and headed away from her.

"H-hey! Where are you going?"

The Freedom pilot pointed across the grass to a small ice cream cart perched under an oak tree. "To get us some ice cream. I'll be right back," he waved and made his way slowly over to the vendor. His sister needed some time to think things over, so he might as well provide her with a few minutes while he enjoyed the sunshine.

It wasn't as if he felt any differently than she did. The fiery Princess of Orb had arrived in his life at just the right instant. She'd saved him from his biggest enemy — his own self-doubt and fear. Without her, he might have allowed Flay to tear him apart. Without her, he might not have had the courage to keep fighting. And of course he'd wondered about the direction their relationship might have traveled, had not "the stupid universe," as she so eloquently put it, interrupted them. There was a nagging curiosity that forced him to ponder whether they could have progressed, as something more than friends. But he had Lacus, and Cagalli seemed to be growing comfortable with his own childhood playmate. It was probably better for the two of them that way. Perhaps it was lucky that they were alerted to their genetic ties at such convenient timing. Had they not been, things might have turned out much worse in the long run.

He ordered two small cones, a strawberry for Cagalli and a chocolate for himself. He ate away at his slowly, striding carefully back to the bench so as not to spill his sister's. He handed it to her with a smile, and to his relief, she smiled back and took it from him. The glitter was back in her eyes, and she appeared to be herself again.

"I think it's funny," she announced after a while, "That we didn't suspect something even _without_ the picture, or what my father said," she told him, licking hastily around the edges of her dripping cone.

"You mean, like strange coincidences?" Kira asked, finishing off his treat in one large bite and raising an incredulous eyebrow.

She nodded. "Yup. Like how we both have birthdays today on the eighteenth of May."

"Or how Lacus keeps telling me that you and I make the same faces when we're really happy or angry, and that we have the same eyes." Kira crinkled his nose to keep from bursting into laughter. He couldn't imagine _anyone_ looking as terrifying as Cagalli when she was livid, much less himself.

"Maybe neither of us would have noticed if we hadn't had to question our origins," she suggested seriously. Then Kira erupted into laughter anyway.

"Hey. What's so funny?"

He shook his head through tears of mirth. "Nothing, Cagalli. It's just that I'm really glad you _are _my sister after all, and that we can share this day together."

Her eyes flew wide, and she strove to hide a blush. "You're such a sap." He leaned in to place a chaste kiss on her cheek, and the blush grew. "Kiiraaa!"

For a glimmer of a moment, the blonde princess could feel a flicker of some old emotion rise to the surface of her chest. As soon as it appeared it died again, leaving her with nothing but a shadow of a memory. And she didn't really mind at all.

"The sun is setting now," the brunette said as he pulled away, attempting to quell her wrath by distracting her with the painted colors of orange and red that splashed the park with their fading light. "Lacus and the others are probably done preparing. We should head back." He reached out a hand to help her up, and she took it, albeit reluctantly.

"Don't think that this sibling thing means I'm going to go any easier on you," she huffed, storming off the way they had come with the laughing Coordinator on her heels. "I can still ask Simmons to give me back the Rouge if you make me mad enough."

"Fine with me," he teased, prodding her in the ribcage, "Just remember that _I'm_ allowing my best friend to get comfortable with you." He had to duck a swing from her fist for that one.

"As if," she retaliated weakly. "Well, I get the first slice of cake when we get back because I'm older."

Kira threw her a playful, condescending look. "_That_, unfortunately," he grinned, "We have no way to prove. What if _I'm_ older?"

"No chance."

They had already reached the Athha estate. As they approached the doorway, it flew open to reveal their friends, decked out in party hats and cheering and whooping with wild shouts of "Happy Birthday."

The two siblings halted. Kira's mouth dropped open with embarrassment, and Cagalli immediately checked the surrounding area for witnesses, slapping a hand to her forehead while muttering something about people being overenthusiastic.

It was amongst the noise and chaos that Kira leaned over and whispered into her ear.

"Happy birthday, Cagalli," he said.

The blonde broke into a contented grin. "Yeah, you too, Kira."

"This year, let's try to get to know each other better," the Freedom pilot suggested as they entered the mansion surrounded by their excited companions.

Cagalli Yula Athha nodded her agreement before scampering off to scold Lacus for outdoing herself, and Kira couldn't help but feel a sense of peace. It looked like they'd have plenty of time to become even closer in the years ahead. Without a single doubt, they had moved forward. It had been a precious birthday indeed.

_A/N: Yeesh, I dunno how that went. I tried not to make them seem too incestuous, haha. The thing is, I was a huge Kira/Cagalli fan before I found out they were related, so I guess old habits die hard. Drop a comment! _


End file.
